♪ michelle: welcome to "focus on europe." i'm michelle henery. today, we take a look at the alarming number of dolphins dying in the black sea. on the beaches of bulgaria, hundreds of dead animals have washed up on shore. they are getting caught in the driftnets of the fishing industry, say environmentalists. but the local fishermen don't agree. >> we fishermen are the smallest problem for the dolphins in the black sea, one of them told us. michelle: our reporter went to bulgaria to find out what is behind the growing crisis. we'll have more on that later in the program. but first, staying here in germany, jaber albakr was

detained in a leipzig jail on suspicion of planning to bomb an airport in berlin. three days later, the syrian refugee, who was thought to have connections to so-called islamic state, committed suicide in his cell. albakr's death is being viewed as the latest in a series of blunders on the part of german authorities and it's a huge loss for security officials, a potentially important source of terror intelligence is now gone. our report follows the would-be jihadist's trail to find out what went wrong. >> i have fallen in love with jihad. and my religion demands that i protect the servants of god. >> american security agencies, german police and three syrian refugees prevented jaber al-bakr from carrying out jihad. he died in prison in leipzig when he managed to by strangle himself with his shirt, instead detonating of a suicide vest.

>> this is the cell where the prisoner al-bakr committed suicide. >> the prison psychologist and administrators did not evaluate the prisoner as being in acute danger of suicide. his cell was checked only every half an hour. in this residential district in chemnitz, the syrian refugee jaber al-bakr was planning a terrorist bombing. the first intelligence about the plot came from the u.s., which had detected a suspicious communication between al-bakr and a unknown person. the saxony state police bungled its operation and al-bakr escaped his apartment at 7:00 in the morning. the police searched his apartment all day and into the night. explosives were still there. a bomb crew destroyed it in a controlled detonation.

the explosion gives an idea of what al-bakr was planning. his path to terrorism was indirect. he came from saasaa, a town near syria's capital, damascus. his family is well-to-do and loyal to syria's president, assad. via a low-quality internet connection to syria, jaber's older brother allaa provides an interview. >> jaber had no extremist tendencies. he was normal like all of us, we pray and fast, play cards and smoke a water pipe. >> jaber is alledged to havesyrr criticizing president assad. he fled syria in november 2014, arriving in germany three months later. >> he told me about two imams in germany who recruited him for jihad. i first noticed a change when he said he often went to them for friday prayers. he could have simply prayed at home. but he preferred to travel four hors to berlin.

>> it wasn't the police who captured al-bakr, but the syrians mohammed, ahmed, and sami. they don't want their faces shown. their families live in areas controlled by is and they fear revenge. we meet in an undisclosed location and they tell us how they captured al-bakr. >> he called me around 5:00 p.m. and i asked, who are you? he said he had my nmber from someone at the train station and he wanted to stay at my place for a few days. he'd been promised a job and would look for an apartment as soon as he started working. i told him, no problem. it's normal among us to help someone who's in a jam. >> al-bakr had contacted syrians in leipzig via a social network. apparently, he had taken a train from chemnitz to leipzig.

the syrians gave al-bakr clean clothing and took a photo of him. meanwhile, the police had published a wanted poster of al-bakr, also in arabic. mohammed and his friends saw it. while mohammed hurried back to his apartment with a friend, sami and ahmed went to the police. finallly, when an officer there recognized the photo, she alerted the sek, germany's tactical weapons team. meanwhile, mohammed and his friend overpowered the sleeping al-bakr. >> we captured him, and he tried to escape. he said, i will give you money, but let me go. he said he'd received a first payment of 10,000 euros ad would get the rest after completing the operation. >> instead, mohammed and his friend sent a photo of the tied-up fugitive to ahmed and sami at the police station. al-bakr was attempting to escape his bonds.

>> shortly before midnight, the sek, stormed mohammed's apartment. germany's most-wanted man had been captured by his own countrymen. the sek brought al-bakr to leipzig prison. three days later, he was dead. and so al-bakr's contacts may remain unknown. a huge embarrassment for the authorities. a press conference was quickly scheduled with the prison management, the public prosecutor, and saxony's justice >> -- justice minister. >> it should not have happened. unfortunately, it did. >> an autopsy was performed on al-bakr in leipzig's forensics department to preclude speculation that his death was something other than suicide. but conspiracy theories developed anyway. the al-bakr family in syria is up in arms. police protection is being

considered for the three syrians who caught him. >> we arabs believe in revenge. i will take revenge on these syrians. i won't do it for i.s. or the rebels or the regime, but only for myself. and i hold the german interior ministry responsible for everything that happened. >> islam regards suicide as a sin. for those who believe, the would-be martyr is headed for hell. michelle: fisherman in bulgaria are up in arms about poor working conditions, stiff competition and low wages. georgie paychev says that he and fellow fisherman are already closely monitored by various institutions from border police to the fishing authority. they are now under even closer scrutiny. alarming numbers of dead dolphins are washing up on the country's black sea coast, and small-scale fishermen feel they're being unfairly blamed.

georgi peichev and the other fishermen here are not happy, their nets are torn up again, and they know who's to blame. >> a dolphin made this hole. >> look what nice big holes the dolphins made. >> these were made by little dolphins. >> the year before last, it took me a month to mend all the nets just because of the dolphins. sometimes the holes are as big as a whole boat or a door or a car. >> the fishermen in tsarevo's harbor are convinced there are too many dolphins in the black sea. they say they have a good life, each dolphin eating some twenty kilos of fish per day fish

-- day. fish georgi would like to catch and sell. he has no sympathy for the hundreds of dolphins found washed up dead on bulgaria's coast this year. environmentalists blame large-scale dragnet fishing. >> it's a huge business. you can catch 800 kilos of turbot with a three-kilometer-long drift net. with a hundred-kilometer net, you can haul in two to four tons. one kilo brings up to forty euros on the market in turkey. so yo can make half a million euros in just a few days. the dead baby dolphins washed up here on the beach by the waves have just been taken out of the nets and thrown into the sea. >> the environmentalists have taken the matter to the government, which promised to ban the nets. but so far, nothing has changed. >> at this time, i wouldn't

venture to cite a specific reason for the dolphins dying, because we have not done targeted research or necropsies. unfortunately, we haven't yet found any suitable cadavers to conduct a necropsy on. >> romanian biologist razvan popescu came to bulgaria on his own initiative to support the environmentalists. he's going to conduct an necropsy on this dolphin to establish the cause of death. bulgaria has no specialists nor specialized labs, so he'll have to improvise. >> the belly, it's normal at this stage of life. the teeth must be at least 1.8 centimeters long. >> like the other ones that we found. >> most of them are stressed, because they're not finding

enough food, and many get caught up in fishing nets. they're nets that have been cut loose, or nets used for turbot. there is also illegal fishing. the authorities have got to crack down on that much harder. >> many of the dolphins are killed in the legal and illegal nets of fishermen. drift nets that have been cut loose known as ghost nets float just beneath the surface. they're especially treacherous. an estimated 1000 kilometers of ghost nets are adrift in the black sea. the fishermen reject any and all responsibility. >> i think fishermen are the least of the black-sea dolphin'' problems. fishing is monitored by at least three different authorities. the maritime administration, the

border police, and the fisheries authority. they see everything that happens on their monitors. >> this particular day, the fisheries authority has no illegal fishermen on their monitor. they normally cast their nets 40 to 50 nautical miles out from the coast. out of reach of the authority's slow little non-ocean-going boats. but the state doesn't seem willing to spend any more to fight illegal fishing. only a few poachers are ever caught. >> last year, we handed four such cases on to the state prosecutor. some of the trials are still in progress.

we report everything we see, and we hope to stop the poaching completely. >> so far, not a single poacher has been handed a prison sentence in bulgaria. the environmentalists are calling for a ban on drift-net fishing. they have no doubt that's what's killing the dolphins. >> this year, the dolphin carcasses that were suitable for examination, were found to have drowned. that can only happen if they get caught in the fishermen's illegal nets and can't free themselves. >> environmentalists have catalogued more than 400 dead dolphins. victims of unbridled fishing, washed up on bulgaria's beaches. michelle: what could be done to

prevent more dolphin deaths? let us know what you think by getting in touch on facebook, email or twitter. tracey has spent her entire life in dagenham. with sadness, she has watched her east london suburb decline from its once prosperous position as a major manufacturing hub for carmaker ford, to one that has some of the highest unemployment in the capital. like tracey, many people in this working class labour party heartland feel abandoned by politicians. as a result, it was one of the few areas in london that broke with labour policy and voted for brexit, britain's departure from the european union. that has local government worried and tracey and many fellow residents hope that their vote was a signal that could help get their future back on track. >> even as a child, tracey lee stood on this bridge and watched the trains bound for london's city centre.

all her life, she's lived on london's outskirts, in the borough of dagenham. it used to be much nicer, cleaner and safer here, she says. >> they always looked after bridges. i can not fault them for that. it has been at least the last five, six years that ive seen this bridge deteriorate. and the rubbish thats been here for weeks. >> like many regions, dagenham's been hit by the government's austerity cuts. for many decades, car manufacturer ford employed many in area. tracey's family worked in the industry, too. 10 years ago, production almost came to a complete halt. now, many in dagenham feel left behind. not so much by europe but by their own politicians. and the brexit vote was a welcome opportunity to vent this frustration. >> i think the government only has themselves to blame why people voted out.

because if they had been fair, making all these changes, treated others better than others, they would have voted in. thats how i feel, as a citizen of britain. >> tracey likes taking her grandson to the local museum , which tells the area's history. dagenham's always been a working class area. and its people have always been progressive. early on, women here stood up for equal pay. and tracey thinks there used to be more solidarity here. the borough has undergone a radical change in recent years. it has seen one of britain's largest influxes of immigrants. that's another reason why many here voted for brexit. there are numerous eastern european food shops near tracey's home. many of the sales staff still feel at home in dagenham. but others speak of a changed atmosphere. >> there is always somewhere

behind, this or that feeling that we are immigrants. but now some people express that more freely. >> come on, 1, 2, 3. >> dont move to berlin, move to barking. >> better than that. come on. >> giving up is no option. the people of dagenham have audacious plans for revitalising the area. they want to build a large film studio. dagenham council leader and labour member darren rodwell is pushing the initiative. he grew up here. he, too, is from a working-class home. and says romanticising the past won't work. >> what i want to do is keep those people thinking outside the box, but keep them in the borough. thats why we are now talking about films not fords. >> the plan is to build a film studio and workspaces for artists. tracey now works in the new community centre. >> can you sew that now?

>> she's good with her hands and helps artist chad mccail who wants to adapt an english fairy tale into a puppet show. >> i want them to enjoy the experience of making to find out how their hands can be employed in a way that brings pleasure to other people. >> things a looking up in dagenham. london's mayor sadiq khan has come to see for himself. darren rodwell is showing him around. tracey would like to tell sadiq khan what dagenham needs most urgently. but he's got no time to talk. >>'s you guys. cheers, thank you very much. >> a dissapointment for tracey and the others. but she's pleased the local council is stimulating the area's cultural sector. >> i think its lovely, because, its like, oh, you are important in this borough, we are interested.

its nice to bring it here. it is lovely to bring it in this borough. >> but even so, it'll be years before these new projects yield proper jobs. tracey, though, is happy that a start's been made. who knows? her grandson jimmy may grow up to be a famous film director from dagenham. michelle: they desperately wanted to help, but weren't sure how. ukrainian sisters leela and yulia felt powerless as they watched the east of their country ravaged by war. despite the truce negotiated in the military conflict that erupted after russia annexed crimea, fighting continues. so the sisters came up with an idea of how to support their fighters on the front line. together, with other modern career women, they started an

old fashioned sewing circle. >> the sisters lila and yulia are late joining their friends in the basement. more scraps of material have just arrived. >> long live ukraine, they say. it's become a greeting all across the country. these women gather here almost every evening, sometimes working late into the night. they have to get the next batch of camouflage suits done as quickly as possible. lila and olga are both actually accountants. others here are doctors, teachers and bank clerks. they've been coming here since yulia and lila formed the group on facebook in 2014. they talk about their children, jobs and their country's economic crisis while they work. but it's far more than a casual sewing circle. >> we've all known each other since the maidan square protests. when the fighting started in the east, we were supposed to stay home, but it's extremely hard

just to watch the news about the war. we couldn't take it any more. so we thought about what to do. as women, we weren't prepared to fight at the front, so we considered other possibilities. >> they wanted to actively contribute to the effort not just sit by and watch. lila remembers they hit on the idea by pure chance. >> a friend was out walking her dog and showed me a video of men in these camouflage suits lying on the ground, and the bullets were flying over them. >> so they started making camouflage suits out of fishnets, potato sacks, rags and scraps of wool for the men on the front lines. they gave their creations names from slavic mythology. >> we call these suits kikimora.

>> kikimora is an invisible witch who lives in the woods, terrorizes people and drives them off with her magic powers. the russians are well-acquainted with the figure. ukrainians know they strengthen the fighting men by being strong at home. thousands across the country have followed the call. 80% of them are women. they realize the men at the front need their support. valeri, a volunteer fighter home on leave, confirms, nothing would work in ukraine without the women. >> they've always supported us, and now we need more nets. that's got to help out. >> the fighting in ukraine escalated again over the summer. so the camouflage batallion, as the women call themselves, began sending more nets, often with personal greetings and verses attached.

by the next morning, valeri's back at the front. he spent all night driving the 700 kilometers to rejoin his unit. they need the nets immediately. the commanding officer has already taken a bullet. they've been under fire for days. without the camouflage, they're sitting ducks. >> the nets work brilliantly. added distance of 10 meters to 20 meters, they make you unrecognizeable. but within a month, everything will be autumn yellow here. then we'll need different nets. we have to keep changing them. we will need different colors. >> they were the camouflaged suits when they position snipers , who check the separatists' advances. they say the pro-russian side is trying to gain territory in small steps. since the ceasefire took effect in 2014, the separatists have been expanding their area.

>> we come under attack every day. the enemy tries to break through our lines every day. not lone fighters, but whole units. the war just keeps on going. there never was any real cease-fire. only on paper. and we cannot shoot back. >> they are on alert nonstop. the soldiers say the few lulls are generally broken by even worse violence. they take a skeptical view of the latest agreements to come out of minsk. >> according to the new provisions, we have to withdraw from one of three zones. but the whole time, the ceasefire's being broken in other places. even during the day. >> the women of the camouflage batallion rarely watch television. they spend most evenings sewing in the workshop. the state of emergency has long become routine, but that doesn't mean they will ever get used to

it. >> this conflict really ought to be resolved diplomatically. but we always have to be on the lookout for another escalation and be ready to show our teeth. we have to defend our country's independence by military means. >> the next evening, they're back in the musty basement , making more nets, this time in subdued winter colors. they don't anticipate peace any time soon. michelle: they may not believe that peace is possible, but i'd like to think that theyre still -- they are still hopeful it will happen one day. until next time, thank you for watching. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] visit ncicap.org]

steves: while dedicating a month of your life to walk the camino may be admirable, it doesn't work for everyone. but any traveler can use this route as a sightseeing spine and as an opportunity to appreciate some of the joys and lessons that come with being a pilgrim. just 5 miles before the spanish border stands the french basque town of st. jean-pied-de-port. traditionally, santiago-bound pilgrims would gather here to cross the pyrenees and continue their march through spain. visitors to this popular town are a mix of tourists and pilgrims. at the camino office, pilgrims check in before their long journey to santiago. they pick up a kind of pilgrim's passport. they'll get it stamped at each stop

to prove they walked the whole way and earned their compostela certificate. walking the entire 500-mile-long route takes about five weeks. that's about 15 miles a day, with an occasional day of rest. the route is well-marked with yellow arrows and scallop shells. the scallop shell is the symbol of both st. james and the camino. common on the galician coast, the shells were worn by medieval pilgrims as a badge of honor to prove they made it. the traditional gear has barely changed -- a gourd for drinking water, just the right walking stick, and a scallop shell dangling from each backpack. the slow pace and need for frequent rest breaks provide plenty of opportunity for reflection, religious and otherwise. for some, leaving behind a stone symbolizes unloading a personal burden.

the first person to make this journey was st. james himself. after the death and resurrection of christ, the apostles traveled far and wide to spread the christian message. supposedly, st. james went on a missionary trip from the holy land all the way to this remote corner of northwest spain. according to legend, in the year 813, st. james' remains were discovered in the town that would soon bear his name. people began walking there to pay homage to his relics. after a 12th-century pope decreed that the pilgrimage could earn forgiveness for your sins, the popularity of the camino de santiago soared. the camino also served a political purpose. it's no coincidence that the discovery of st. james' remains happened when muslim moors controlled most of spain. the whole phenomenon of the camino helped fuel the european passion to retake spain and push the moors back into africa. but by about 1500,

with the dawn of the renaissance and the reformation, interest in the camino died almost completely. then, in the 1960s, a handful of priests re-established the tradition. the route has since enjoyed a huge resurgence, with 100,000 pilgrims trekking the santiago each year.